18 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2016
    1. If textbooks and other learning materials are free and openly licensed, this fundamentally transforms the relationship of learners to their content, empowering faculty and students to shape knowledge, not just consume it

      Financial hardships can make receiving a higher education so much more difficult. When you factor in tuition, room and board, and other necessities you can rack up a lot of money. If we were to decrease the outside costs and eliminate things like insanely expensive mandatory text books, more students would be successful. Furthermore, making textbooks free would completely change the classroom. How many times have students not had the required text and been left behind to suffer just because of lack of funds?

    2. The challenge of being a public scholar is not just in being accountable for your words to a vast, diverse audience; it’s in being responsible for demanding that the vastness and diversity be preserved in the face of pressure to close it off for the profit or comfort of the elite.

      Goldrick-Rab received harsh backlash for criticizing the institution she works at. While that may be deemed unprofessional I think that people should have the right to speak up about the wrong-doings that are happening in front of their face. I think that because of all the hate she received from this, others who are in similar situations will be more fearful of speaking their mind.

  2. Dec 2015
  3. networkedlearningcollaborative.com networkedlearningcollaborative.com
    1. The majority use MySpace (65%) with Facebook (37%) being the second mostpopular site,

      It would be interesting to see a more recent study, MySpace is definitely a dying SN.

    2. A study of U.S. college students (18 – 24) found 85% of respondents useSNSs, and most, on a daily basis to keep in touch with others (Salaway, Borreson,Nelson, 2008)

      I think if you were to collect the same data today, it would be a lot different. It seems to me that most students do not really use most social network sites as a form of communication, but as a form of expressing themselves. Social network sites have developed into an online diary with idea sharing. I also believe that the percentage of students utilizing SNs would be higher.

    3. andtheir uses of information and communication technologies, seen as separate fromschool-sanctioned practices.

      Cell phones, tablets, and laptops are not allowed in most high schools and middle schools which is crippling. There may be one or two assignments a year that involve gathering information online; but otherwise students are forced to use a dated form of learning. Limiting students seems almost silly when you consider the vast amount of information that they have sitting in their back-pockets which they are not allowed to use.

    4. Popular media accounts, however, tend toportray young people’s media practices as deficient or deleterious to academiclearning, often linking them to an ‘‘overriding sense of moral panic about decliningstandards of literacy’’ (Thurlow, 2006, para. 23) or a ‘‘threat to societal values’’(Herring, 2007, p. 4) without acknowledging the full complexity of students’experiences

      Often times social media is perceived as brain sucker. While it does have some negative effects it is also responsible for a lot of online learning. News is tweeted, images are created and posted, forums are available for discussion; however the common reputation is that social media is bad based on solely on the amount of time younger people spend on it.

  4. Nov 2015
    1. There are things you can do with sound that you cannot do with graphic substance, either easily or at all; not even imitate all that successfully graphically

      Distinguishing meaning trough voice inflections and tone can not be done so easily in the form of written word as opposed to orally. There are certain things you can do one, but you cannot do with the other, even though both can require the use of words.

    2. The difference in meaning depends on the relation of the depicted entities to each other in the frame of the picture-space: the resultant difference in Georgia’s sense of herself and her family is an effect of these spatial relations. In drawing the materiality of sound is not available for making, to indicate just how ‘being’ Georgia’s parents seem to her, instead the affordance of space is used – making things taller or shorter, broader or thinner.

      Georgia draws the world as she is affected by it, and as she relates to it. Her personal experiences shape her view of not only herself but her parents. But because we do not know Georgia we have the task of interpreting her drawing as we see fit.

    1. Design matters

      In school we often take the creativity out of the classroom. I think that allowing students to use more than just their regurgitation skills is vital. Most of the time the focus is on comprehension and summaries, but the process of creation is often left out. Design is such an important part of presentation.

    2. I have argued that analytics is the most important literacy skill that no one is teaching.

      I did not properly learn how to analyze information until my sophomore year of college. Up until then I was simply paraphrasing and summarizing information. K-12 should incorporate more challenging of ways of understanding text.

    3. They seemed to hold more information in their working memories that they could later mold into new meanings. They could quickly use the information they read and check it against their understanding of texts they visit in three or four clicks.

      Retaining the information you read and cross-checking with various other sources gives you a better understanding of the information you are handling while also giving you the ability to check reliability and meaningfulness.

    4. The students who could manage multiple tabs, navigate search engines, and move between multiple sources did better.

      I've noticed that while I keep multiple tabs open with loads of information, my friends get frustrated with the amount of information and are constantly opening and closing 2-3 tabs to fit their needs. I find it much easier to have a lot of tabs open at once and bounce around the information as opposed to constantly searching and replacing information in just two tabs. When I navigate tabs I save time and do less work.

    5. When reading online more successful students do not simply assimilate information as traditional definitions comprehension would have us believe. Skilled online readers “manipulate and mold information to achieve a higher goal

      Successful students are not summarizing the information they have read, but rather synthesizing the information they have acquired in order to make it fit their needs; thus making them more successful in a school setting.

    6. Two percent. Just 2% of code separates us from our Chimpanzee brethren. Yet that small difference has lead to humanities’ migration, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the creation of vast works of art.

      As an anthropology major, it is important to understand how such a small difference has lead to a cultural revolution and adaptation that has allowed us to evolve into completely different beings than which we started. Small differences really do matter, and I think this is a great example of that.

  5. Sep 2015
    1. Contrary to popular stereotypes, these activities are not restricted to white, suburban males. In fact, urban youths (40 percent) are somewhat more likely than their suburban (28 per-cent) or rural (38 percent) counterparts to be media creators. Girls aged 15–17 (27 percent) are more likely than boys their age (17 percent) to be involved with blogging or other social activities online. The Pew researchers found no significant dif-ferences in participation by race or ethnicity

      I'm not too surprised by this statistic, though I do find it interesting that I have never noticed it. A lot of the memes and funny videos I watched include satires of urban pop culture and lifestyles.

    2. —learning how to campaign and govern; how to read, write, edit, and defend civil liberties; how to pro-gram computers and run a business; how to make a movie and find distribution—

      The curriculum in today's schooling fail to prepare students for a world after graduation. Many, if not all the skills mentioned here were not touched on in my high school or middle school.

    1. To teens, these technologies—and the properties that go with them—are just an obvious part of life in a networked era, whereas for many adults these affordances reveal changes that are deeply disconcerting.

      Social media has always been a part of the lives of most teens today making it seem more natural and comfortable. Adults, however find social media to be disconcerting because its a new part of communication that is being introduced into their lives.

    2. As people use these different tools, they help create new social dynam-ics

      Because technology has become such a commanding force in the way we communicate, people can fight online and as the example put forth by the author says; people can even stalk you online.